I've been toying with the idea of making this suggestion for a while now but I decided the worst that could happen if I did is that I'd be told to go to hell so here goes...

FSN is a pretty damn good visual novel (it certainly sold quite a bit, at least) and I'm sure its story can be appreciated by a number of people. The problem I (and no doubt many of you) have is that most of the people I know are not as... enthusiastic, shall we say... about Japanese cultural exports and thus don't know (or even care) about the fluff or - let's be honest here - idiosyncratic translation styles that most fans now take to be the default.

My suggestion is that there be a "normal-friendly" version of the translation available for those of us who want to introduce the game to our friends - specifically the ones which don't spend their time watching fansubs or reading scanlations. I want to be able to go up to my friend (a hypothetical friend, since of course I have no real friends) who only uses his computer for web design and writing documents and say "Hey, try this visual novel! I'll lend you my copy, here's the translation patch, now go have fun!" instead of "Hey, try this visual novel! I'll lend you my copy, here's the translation patch," and impotently finishing with something like "now make sure to read the liner notes; it's not an exhaustive list but I'm sure you'll figure it out. Err... go check Wikipedia if you don't get something... yeah."

Aside from the problem that anyone who receives such a glittering endorsement of the English quality is unlikely to actually install the wretched thing (without copious nagging), it does reflect badly on me as the implication is that I've been so obsessed by this that I consider mishmashed English and Japanese normal.

As I see it, these are the criteria necessary to make this "normal-friendly", in order of priority:

Expunge (ooh, isn't that a lovely word?) honourifics and other unnecessary Japanese words.

Remove the ero scenes. This is, of course, optional and could make a bit of a mess, but the 15-rated Realta Nua managed it somehow. Perhaps one could reverse-engineer its solution?

Consider changing the narrative tense. I simply can't deny that TakaJun's decision to keep Shirou's narration in the present tense worked very well but it is at odds with Western practice. Food for thought, perhaps?

So there you have it. Inevitably this topic will receive one or two cordial replies to the effect of "No." before sinking into the obscure oblivion of the bottom half of the page but this way I get to feel like I've contributed something.

ILPPendant wrote:I've been toying with the idea of making this suggestion for a while now but I decided the worst that could happen if I did is that I'd be told to go to hell so here goes...

FSN is a pretty damn good visual novel (it certainly sold quite a bit, at least) and I'm sure its story can be appreciated by a number of people. The problem I (and no doubt many of you) have is that most of the people I know are not as... enthusiastic, shall we say... about Japanese cultural exports and thus don't know (or even care) about the fluff or - let's be honest here - idiosyncratic translation styles that most fans now take to be the default.

My suggestion is that there be a "normal-friendly" version of the translation available for those of us who want to introduce the game to our friends - specifically the ones which don't spend their time watching fansubs or reading scanlations. I want to be able to go up to my friend (a hypothetical friend, since of course I have no real friends) who only uses his computer for web design and writing documents and say "Hey, try this visual novel! I'll lend you my copy, here's the translation patch, now go have fun!" instead of "Hey, try this visual novel! I'll lend you my copy, here's the translation patch," and impotently finishing with something like "now make sure to read the liner notes; it's not an exhaustive list but I'm sure you'll figure it out. Err... go check Wikipedia if you don't get something... yeah."

Aside from the problem that anyone who receives such a glittering endorsement of the English quality is unlikely to actually install the wretched thing (without copious nagging), it does reflect badly on me as the implication is that I've been so obsessed by this that I consider mishmashed English and Japanese normal.

As I see it, these are the criteria necessary to make this "normal-friendly", in order of priority:

Expunge (ooh, isn't that a lovely word?) honourifics and other unnecessary Japanese words.

Remove the ero scenes. This is, of course, optional and could make a bit of a mess, but the 15-rated Realta Nua managed it somehow. Perhaps one could reverse-engineer its solution?

Consider changing the narrative tense. I simply can't deny that TakaJun's decision to keep Shirou's narration in the present tense worked very well but it is at odds with Western practice. Food for thought, perhaps?

So there you have it. Inevitably this topic will receive one or two cordial replies to the effect of "No." before sinking into the obscure oblivion of the bottom half of the page but this way I get to feel like I've contributed something.

Kind Regards,
ILP

The last two things you mentioned. Already a patch to do something like, but it's partially illegal.

The last ONE you mentioned...uh...what...? Dude, you're basically asking him to change the story. It's not something he really decided, it's how it's told, English or Japanese.

Sighs, pants, and chuckles would make the book look stupid. Honourifics being removed is possible, but it'd look stupid as hell, you know? I've already told my friends of Fate / Stay Night and for them to watch the inferior anime, play the superior game, ectera. This is the friendly version of the translation. You're basically asking the Translators to DUMB down a story to reach main audience, which is pretty stupid, because they just translate it, and I think it'd be insulting to actually change parts of the story in translation.

Do you want Sakura saying "Upper-Classman?" all the time to Shirou? It'd look weird. Do you want her calling him Shirou all the time? That'd ruin some of their cutest moments they have in the game(Which is few, cause Sakura sucks)

You're asking the Translators, not the people who wrote the novel itself, to basically rape the Visual Novel of anything that might give the average Joe some confusion. It can't be done with Nasu's work, he's considered a complex and crazy writer even in Japan...so yeah.

Just say what you want to say, not a "friendly" version, but a "Dumb" version, for people who can't even understand alot of simple things in this. Aslo, looking at the liner notes takes all but a minute maybe? Two if yer slow? It's not that hard lol.

Just saying, imagine Rin saying "Chuckles", it'd ruin her cuteness too. Do you want it to become like all the other generic hentai visual novels?

Mkilbride wrote:The last two things you mentioned. Already a patch to do something like, but it's partially illegal.

The last ONE you mentioned...uh...what...? Dude, you're basically asking him to change the story. It's not something he really decided, it's how it's told, English or Japanese.

As I understood things, it is normal for Japanese prose to be written in the present tense. Practically all the visual novel translations I've read (that include some form of narration) operate in the past tense, in line with what we do in English.

Mkilbride wrote:Sighs, pants, and chuckles would make the book look stupid. Honourifics being removed is possible, but it'd look stupid as hell, you know? I've already told my friends of Fate / Stay Night and for them to watch the inferior anime, play the superior game, ectera. This is the friendly version of the translation. You're basically asking the Translators to DUMB down a story to reach main audience, which is pretty stupid, because they just translate it, and I think it'd be insulting to actually change parts of the story in translation.

Do you want Sakura saying "Upper-Classman?" all the time to Shirou? It'd look weird. Do you want her calling him Shirou all the time? That'd ruin some of their cutest moments they have in the game(Which is few, cause Sakura sucks)

My god, not literally replace every instance with "sigh", "pant" or "chuckle". I only phrased it that way in my post because it sounded so surreal when I thought of it. Now, I've read a fair few (English) books and not one of them use sounds like "haa" to indicate any sort of aspiration or exasperation; never have I heard someone go "Fufufu" in anime (or any other medium) when laughing. There are more elegant ways of conveying these things that don't rely on the reader knowing the peculiarities of the Japanese writing system.

You claim the removal of honourifics would look stupid as hell but that's as good as a myth. If you actually take the time to consider the meaning of what is being said and mould the English to fit that, the result is incredibly elegant and allows someone who hasn't spent years empirically observing Japanese usage to appreciate what they really mean. Besides, it's completely arbitrary to only include honourifics, since they are only a tiny part of the whole politeness thing that Japanese has going on.

That whole "Upper-Classman" thing (although senior works fine here, but I guess you wanted it to sound as clumsy as possible to make your point) doesn't convince me. Please elaborate on these "cutest moments" that mandate the use of a foreign word, and preclude the use of "Shirou", in order to preserve their meaning. The only problem I came across would be "Fuji-nee" - I'd have to really think about that.

Mkilbride wrote:You're asking the Translators, not the people who wrote the novel itself, to basically rape the Visual Novel of anything that might give the average Joe some confusion. It can't be done with Nasu's work, he's considered a complex and crazy writer even in Japan...so yeah.

Just say what you want to say, not a "friendly" version, but a "Dumb" version, for people who can't even understand alot of simple things in this. Aslo, looking at the liner notes takes all but a minute maybe? Two if yer slow? It's not that hard lol.

I have absolutely no idea what makes Nasu unique. I can't read Japanese - what's special about his writing style?
By your standards it looks like I am indeed asking the translators to "rape" the Visual Novel. Presumably just like Hirameki "raped" Ever17 or Phantom of Inferno or how BTAxis "raped" Castle Fantasia 2. How dare I Dumb Down this beautiful linguistic hybrid (I guess?) into stylistically pleasant, plain English. Sigh Haa.

Mkilbride wrote:Just saying, imagine Rin saying "Chuckles", it'd ruin her cuteness too. Do you want it to become like all the other generic hentai visual novels?

Next time you're talking to someone and they make a joke, instead of going "Hahaha!" say "Fufufu!". See if you get funny looks.

Most people actually make a fufufu sound when they laugh, so I have no idea what yer on about.

When yer tired, alot of people go "Haa...haa...haa", like that...it's normal.

"Senior! Senior!" Oh, god that'd be so stupid looking. I realize what they honourifics mean, but it's part of the overall feel. Let's see, the joke about her still calling him Senpai would be removed, and the moment where she finally calls him "Shirou", wouldn't be as special. Senpai is one of the only personality traits she has. Also, what would she call Rin initially? At first, she didn't want to call her by just "Rin", as she didn't want to be overly-familiar with her(You should know why), so she called her Senpai also.

"Fufufu!" is when yer laugh with yer lip curved down and it makes that odd little noise, alot of people do that. Also, I seriously doubt anyone who wouldn't want to at least try to understand these basic things would enjoy a Visual Novel.

I was first confronted by such terms when I started Tsukihime. So I opened the Liner Notes thing and said "Ah, that's simple". It's not at all hard to understand...and it'd be alot of work to re-go through the script replacing and changing alot of it. You're asking for alot of work with almost no pay off or valid reason.

In a way, ILP has a point, there are very few people outside the VN reading community who are used to "Haa"s, "fufufu"s and such (I'm yet to find a fan-subbed anime that subs chuckling and sighing). By substituting "haha"s and "fufu"s with laughing and/or chuckling description may prove to be more understandable to some people, but if left without a change I really doubt anyone will ever go "what the hell is going on here?".
I agree with Mkilbride in that senpai's translation is really odd (senior, superior.... whatev's) and, if we are dealing with a japanese-like environment, it's better to leave it as is, that way you not only preserve the feeling but also the intended meaning. Going back to the "fufu" case, even if people do actually laugh in a "fufu"-ish manner, it can be replaced with a *laugh* description or something like that but, personally, I think that "fufu" stuff gives a personal detail to a character who laughs in that manner which cannot be obtained with a mere *laugh* description (unless we are talking about a novel that actually goes on to describe the whole manner in which a character laughs).
About the "present to past form of description conversion"-stuff, I find that quite stupid to do. Read Steppen Wolf, by Herman Hesse, if I remember correctly, it's written in that way. If we were to convert a writing style just to suit the more main-stream style, then we may as well start wanting the novels that are written in letter-style or a diary-style to be converted in the more mainstream style of writing. With that you are saying to get rid of any and all other styles that differ from the mainstream. That is inconcievably senseless, to say the least.

"I settled for that shriek. Those dull vacant eyes... oiled cabbage stench of her...! [...] You know what? I'm sorry if I'm not gonna do this the way you want me to or the way you might. But I will not make an angel out of someone who wasn't an angel...!" -Chief Tyrol, on his beloved wife.
Have you heard about the saying that goes something like "drunk people and kids tell no lies"? Well, that's just a fallacy.

I think the OP's point is turnining this Japanese world into a Western world so an average Westerner can understand / feel comfortable with the story.

It's just like how a lot of Westerners don't eat Chinese food except for fried rice, fried calemaries, dim sims (which they all think are fried spring rolls when in fact most of them are steamed) and sweet and sour pork. If you ask them to have chicken feet, it's like asking them to kill themselves.

After all, the western friends here are the minority who can understand the Japanese/Asian cultures and language more than your usual counterparts.

allanh wrote:I think the OP's point is turnining this Japanese world into a Western world so an average Westerner can understand / feel comfortable with the story.

It's just like how a lot of Westerners don't eat Chinese food except for fried rice, fried calemaries, dim sims (which they all think are fried spring rolls when in fact most of them are steamed) and sweet and sour pork. If you ask them to have chicken feet, it's like asking them to kill themselves.

After all, the western friends here are the minority who can understand the Japanese/Asian cultures and language more than your usual counterparts.

Well, I don't think it's possible to direct someone from a complete oblivious to these kind of things into the world of visual novel. First, visual novel itself is already niche enough among the Japanese sub community, I know a lot of hardcore anime fans who has never touch a visual novel itself. And I don't really understand the neccessary to go through all the changes that you listed out, thing like grammar is it even relevant? I'm asking because I have been reading VN a long time and I never noticed this until you mentioned it. The narrative is more or less the distinct style and the soul of VN, changing that is pretty prententious of an action that won't accomplish anything.

I think if you want to lead someone down to the VN path you need some kind of bridge, and that bridge should be something more accessible. Again, VN is too niche to be the starting point for someone to explore the Japanese culture. Anime, that's a good middle man, and I think it's pretty safe to say if you can not get someone to like anime, it's pretty much impossible to get that person to like VN. Show them a few VN adoption series, and if they're interested enough, you can introduce them the VN in which usually a better material if they want to further exploring the story and characters. That's how I basically came to VN. Not to mention it's very easy to give people the wrong idea if you give them a VN for first hand experience.

Raven wrote:Well, I don't think it's possible to direct someone from a complete oblivious to these kind of things into the world of visual novel. First, visual novel itself is already niche enough among the Japanese sub community, I know a lot of hardcore anime fans who has never touch a visual novel itself. And I don't really understand the neccessary to go through all the changes that you listed out, thing like grammar is it even relevant? I'm asking because I have been reading VN a long time and I never noticed this until you mentioned it. The narrative is more or less the distinct style and the soul of VN, changing that is pretty prententious of an action that won't accomplish anything.

I think if you want to lead someone down to the VN path you need some kind of bridge, and that bridge should be something more accessible. Again, VN is too niche to be the starting point for someone to explore the Japanese culture. Anime, that's a good middle man, and I think it's pretty safe to say if you can not get someone to like anime, it's pretty much impossible to get that person to like VN. Show them a few VN adoption series, and if they're interested enough, you can introduce them the VN in which usually a better material if they want to further exploring the story and characters. That's how I basically came to VN. Not to mention it's very easy to give people the wrong idea if you give them a VN for first hand experience.

First Visual Novels I played, I couldn't stop thinking how annoying it was to keep going through all the text and stuff, but I gradually came to like it. Like others have said, VN's are Niche even in Japan, and Anime is Niche in America, so VN's in America aren't even niche, they're super-niche. Alot of people I tell about VN's think it'd be to much of a hastle and would rather watch the anime or so. This is the market you want to reach, they don't want to REACH back

Hmm.... There might be some rather rare people out there who probably dislike anime and manga, but turns out to be compatible with visual novels... It's possible, but i just think it's highly unlikely... Even among people that loves anime and manga, some of them went "meh" when being recommended a VN...

I tried to recommend F/SN to some of my friends by giving them a copy of the translated trial version, most of them stopped midway though initially interested... imagine it, halfway through a demo that's barely a crumb of the real deal. Some who actually finished it, stop playing the full ver after half to 1 hour....

I don't think it's all about linguistic style like honorifics, senpai, narrrative style of whatever (funny you mentioned the narrative style, cos i don't even realize it until you mentioned it ^^). The problem lies more within the story itself, for instance, not everyone take japan, or perhaps anime style of joke as funny, especially if they're unfamiliar with it, this is a big factor considering that even I would probably had stopped reading such a long visual novel if there's no light jokes here and there in the middle of the story... then, perhaps they don't find anime art-style appealing, or even worse, VN style just doesn't suit them... Maybe rather than VN a medium as movie or normal novel would be better appreciated, sad fact, but i think its the truth...

But hey, don't give up just because of this, here's to keep spreading the existence of Visual Novels...^^

I'm going to reply to everyone at once. Because I'm obsessive like that.

Mkilbride wrote:Most people actually make a fufufu sound when they laugh, so I have no idea what yer on about.

When yer tired, alot of people go "Haa...haa...haa", like that...it's normal.

The same "fu" as used in "fukai" or "futatsu"? String those syllables together and you get an... unusual sound. But that's really beside the point. I am well aware of the sounds people make when they're panting and that it can be reasonably approximated with "haa". However, like "fufufu" it's very unusual and it's not unreasonable that people who haven't encountered it before would be puzzled, at least initially. This is less about comprehension and more about comfort.

Mkilbride wrote:"Senior! Senior!" Oh, god that'd be so stupid looking. I realize what they honourifics mean, but it's part of the overall feel. Let's see, the joke about her still calling him Senpai would be removed, and the moment where she finally calls him "Shirou", wouldn't be as special. Senpai is one of the only personality traits she has. Also, what would she call Rin initially? At first, she didn't want to call her by just "Rin", as she didn't want to be overly-familiar with her(You should know why), so she called her Senpai also.

"Senior! Senior!" would look stupid? Why thank you kindly for your critical and worldly insight, I go away a better man.
Anyway, what you seem to be saying from my point of view amounts to "Oh, it would be too hard to translate it properly, so let's just leave it in Japanese," which of course completely misses the point of translation in the first place.
I will admit I forgot about those occasions when "sempai" actually plays some part in conversation but my point still doesn't change.
Remember how I said I couldn't see how Nasu's style was particularly unique? It seems some eggs have already been broken, so why not at least fully cook the omelette?

Mkilbride wrote:I was first confronted by such terms when I started Tsukihime. So I opened the Liner Notes thing and said "Ah, that's simple". It's not at all hard to understand...and it'd be alot of work to re-go through the script replacing and changing alot of it. You're asking for alot of work with almost no pay off or valid reason.

The amount of work is the real deal-breaker. It's for that reason that I would be very surprised if one of the team came over and actually said "yes". Oh and "valid reason"? Let's be fair now, if I thought this was invalid would I really spend hours of my time typing it out in the first place and then defending it when I could should be doing homework?

abscess wrote:About the "present to past form of description conversion"-stuff, I find that quite stupid to do. Read Steppen Wolf, by Herman Hesse, if I remember correctly, it's written in that way. If we were to convert a writing style just to suit the more main-stream style, then we may as well start wanting the novels that are written in letter-style or a diary-style to be converted in the more mainstream style of writing. With that you are saying to get rid of any and all other styles that differ from the mainstream. That is inconcievably senseless, to say the least.

No.
It is not "inconceivably senseless" to convert from the mainstream style in one language to the mainstream style in another. It is a natural thing to do. If an English book (written in the past tense, as per norm) is translated to Japanese, then it would be transfered to the present tense. Why not the other way round?
Keeping it in the EDIT:present tense would give readers the impression that the writing style is somehow unique or important. Likewise, when I heard that Nasu was considered an unusual writer, I immediately assumed it was (partly) because he had written FSN in the present tense, when all the other games I had played were in the past tense.
I really don't see how you concluded I was advocating homogenising all writing styles and forms into the standard past tense practice.

allanh wrote:I think the OP's point is turnining this Japanese world into a Western world so an average Westerner can understand / feel comfortable with the story.

It's just like how a lot of Westerners don't eat Chinese food except for fried rice, fried calemaries, dim sims (which they all think are fried spring rolls when in fact most of them are steamed) and sweet and sour pork. If you ask them to have chicken feet, it's like asking them to kill themselves.

After all, the western friends here are the minority who can understand the Japanese/Asian cultures and language more than your usual counterparts.

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting what you wrote here, but it is only my intention to naturalise the language, not the actual world itself. I'm not, for instance, suggesting we move everything to somewhere in the US and convert all the names to English ones. Now that would be needless work.

Raven wrote:I think if you want to lead someone down to the VN path you need some kind of bridge, and that bridge should be something more accessible. Again, VN is too niche to be the starting point for someone to explore the Japanese culture. Anime, that's a good middle man, and I think it's pretty safe to say if you can not get someone to like anime, it's pretty much impossible to get that person to like VN. Show them a few VN adoption series, and if they're interested enough, you can introduce them the VN in which usually a better material if they want to further exploring the story and characters. That's how I basically came to VN. Not to mention it's very easy to give people the wrong idea if you give them a VN for first hand experience.

I don't really plan to use VNs as a vehicle for introducing people to Japanese culture, any more than I'm reading Romance of the Three Kingdoms in order to make inroads into classical Chinese culture.
Anyway, introducing them through anime doesn't really accomplish much since they'll almost certainly want to watch the dub (which is undoubtedly replete with horrific voice acting) which, believe it or not, is in proper idiomatic English, kind of like what I'm suggesting.

Mkilbride wrote:First Visual Novels I played, I couldn't stop thinking how annoying it was to keep going through all the text and stuff, but I gradually came to like it. Like others have said, VN's are Niche even in Japan, and Anime is Niche in America, so VN's in America aren't even niche, they're super-niche. Alot of people I tell about VN's think it'd be to much of a hastle and would rather watch the anime or so. This is the market you want to reach, they don't want to REACH back

So niche their sales make up 70% of the Japanese videogame market?

lolipedofin wrote:I don't think it's all about linguistic style like honorifics, senpai, narrrative style of whatever (funny you mentioned the narrative style, cos i don't even realize it until you mentioned it ^^). The problem lies more within the story itself, for instance, not everyone take japan, or perhaps anime style of joke as funny, especially if they're unfamiliar with it, this is a big factor considering that even I would probably had stopped reading such a long visual novel if there's no light jokes here and there in the middle of the story... then, perhaps they don't find anime art-style appealing, or even worse, VN style just doesn't suit them... Maybe rather than VN a medium as movie or normal novel would be better appreciated, sad fact, but i think its the truth...

But hey, don't give up just because of this, here's to keep spreading the existence of Visual Novels...^^

It's interesting you mention all that - I think you might be on to something here. When I consider all the miscellaneous things in find amusing in anime or manga it's actually surprising how much the situation is inherently funnier (for me) because the English is so poorly written, rather like adding a layer of surrealism. For instance, I wonder whether the average Western reader would find Taiga's behaviour as funny as someone who's been slowly and surely inured to Japanese comedy (Manzai and all that) via things like Love Hina or Minami-ke.
That said, I also feel that having a solid, completely English language base might very well provide a layer of comfort for prospective readers, encouraging them to "stick it out", as it were, instead of deciding that this is not for them. In that respect, the prologue is rather convenient since it's mostly action and drama-driven, giving the reader a taste of things to come.

Apologies for any formatting errors - I typed this out in Notepad and it seems to enjoy playing silly buggers with anything I write.

Last edited by ILPPendant on March 28th, 2009, 8:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

the OP here has a point actually. MM's work as well as 90% of fansubbed anime are not what a professional writer would consider to be translations, but rather a type of slang that was created by us (as in foreign otakus)

I'm sure a true translation of F/SN could be done and it'd be a pleasure to read, but just wanting to impress the normals isn't enough of a motive.

Zensunni wrote:the OP here has a point actually. MM's work as well as 90% of fansubbed anime are not what a professional writer would consider to be translations, but rather a type of slang that was created by us (as in foreign otakus)

I'm sure a true translation of F/SN could be done and it'd be a pleasure to read, but just wanting to impress the normals isn't enough of a motive.

Not really. A true translation of F/SN would leave it looking very odd and hard to read, as well as some of our favorite moments ruined.

I appreciate the translations that mirrormoon have provided, but the only reason I would read anything that is translated is that I can't understand the original language. When I read a foreign novel or watch a foreign movie, the main reason I watch them is because I want a foreign experience. The same thing goes for Fate/Stay Night. Westernizing it too much would be like having pizza available at a Chinese buffet. Why the hell would you go to a Chinese buffet to eat pizza?

Then you realize... That there is no loli. And it's not the loli you're molesting, it's yourself.